Companies invest time and money in strategy sessions - create expansive and expensive spreadsheets which lay down their one or two year vision to transformation and then miss out on detailed plans on the most important element- Recruitment and Selection. A lot of times Recruitment targets are just layed down for couple of leadership roles and for the rest the status quo is not challenged . If you really want to transform- Recruitment and hiring - strategy and tactics need to be hacked across levels and across the organization:-

Structure the hiring process for each level- follow it religiously and monitor it fanatically- Organisations invest in hiring processes and structures but let them fall in the trap of the minutiae – If you are not tracking resourcing sources to cost and productivity , or assessment methods to productivity and retention, or hiring managers to retention or productivity, you might as well flip a coin. Google recently analyzed its hiring data and discovered that GPA had no correlation to performance .

Double Loop Learning- Start with a Job Analysis but combine it with a training session for the hiring teams. Job Analysis- creates dynamic linkages between roles and outcomes and also identifies required competencies and assessments ; But without a company wide training of hiring managers ( HR and Line) on common understanding of assumptions behind the new hiring strategy, job analysis is an exercise in futility. What this means is that not only do you know what competencies to check for in a role , and how to check them but their is agreement on the why as well - So does account management for a IT business mean just getting more business or does it also mean setting the clients expectation right- and hence reduced pressure on the delivery team.

Blindly copying a competitors recruitment and hiring strategy is dangerous because their support systems, culture , objectives may be different and hence successful employees for them might be different from yours. Insurance companies in India hired heavily from Banking and from each other with mixed results, but lately some of them are trying different routes to success- HDFC Life Insurance looked out of the box and got Amitabh Chaudhry as the CEO – a unique combination of skills by virtue of leading a BPO for Infosys and earlier leadership roles in investment banking and technology- he gave the organisation a complimentary leadership skill set in process excellence, analytics, customer service, cross-sell and technology- essential to thrive by focusing on margins than just pure topline growth . Birla Sunlife Insurance did something even more radical by placing Jayant Dua as CEO – his experience in manufacturing and consequent focus on cost, the minutest details , process and people helped them tide over the recession.

Identify Rainmakers and Talent Magnets- When Yahoo gave the top job to Marissa Mayers it was more than just hiring a iconic executive from Google but also acquiring a talent magnet- and that has been Meyers agenda since day one on the job- She has managed to attract top talent like - Henrique De Castro from Google, Marissa Louie from Apple, and Kathy Savitt who had earlier worked with Amazon in leadership roles. But this is not just at leadership levels- her focus and ability to attract candidates at each level can revitalize Yahoo's innovation DNA - she has so far hired 50 PhD's in 2013.

Rainmakers can bust traditional budgets- make sure the key to your hiring war chest is not encumbered by archaic or the usual “salary bands” - In 2010 Citibank fresh from a freefall of the recession- took the bold decision to hunt and acquire a team for Investment Banking at salary packages which were a political dynamite in the environment; But 3 years later- this divisions revenue rose 84% to $204 Million.

Sometimes its a confidence issue- especially with smaller companies- they do not realize that if they can marry the right compensation strategy with an intrapreneurial environment and opportunity- they become as “lucrative” as some of the big names.